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ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE 



II The Western Reserve Historical Society, 



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By P. H. KAISER, ESQ., 



OF THE CLEVELAND BAR. 



Mount & Co., Printers. 220 Seneca Street. 

1894. 



^ 

> 



IN EXCHANGE 

JAN 5 - 1915 



THE MORAVIANS ON THE CUYAHOGA. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

[Recently, in company with the President of this Society and others 
I visited the locality to which attention is to be especially directed at this 
time, and then chanced to mention to him the fact of my own Moravian 
parentage and ancestry, and to this circumstance, in part at least, I at- 
tribute the honor of being requested by him to prepare the paper which 
I now present.] 



To write strictly and literally of " The Moravians on the 
Cuyahoga," would be to limit this paper to a period of time so 
short, and to a people so few, that the subject might fail to enlist 
that attention to which it is justly entitled. Such a treatment of 
the topic would divest it of that historic setting which alone 
gives interest to places, people and events. Independent and 
isolated facts have little significance, and are utterly devoid of 
of that didactic force which makes history the greatest teacher 
of mankind. Events can be intelligently and profitably 
studied only in connection with those antecedent occurrences 
which were, so to speak, their historic progenitors. 

The Moravian Church is one of the products of that great 
struggle in Europe which culminated in that social and ecclesias- 
tic upheaval known as "The Protestant Reformation" This 
venerable organization, however, antedates the Reformation by 
well-nigh a century. For it had its origin about the middle of 
the fifteenth century among the followers of the Bohemian 
reformer and martyr, John Huss. Their growth in numbers 
was, under the circumstances, little less than marvelous; for, not- 
withstanding the frequent and cruel persecutions to which they 
were subjected, they had, at the time of Luther, more than four 



— 2— 

hundred churches in Bohemia and Moravia, numbering a mem- 
bership of two hundred thousand persons. So that the " Unitas 
Fratrum," as the Moravians were originally called, are justly- 
styled "Protestants older than Protestantism" — "Reformers 
before the Reformation." 

" Poor, gospel-proof and peaceable," as another has desig- 
nated them, the most conspicuous characteristic of the Moravians 
has ever been the zeal and self-sacrificing devotion with which 
they have carried on the work of Foreign Missions. There has 
been no clime scr Rigorous, no coast so inhospitable, no barbarism 
so cruel, no humanity so debased as to deter these pious mission- 
aries from telling the simple gospel story wherever there was a 
human ear to hear or a human heart to feel. 

Imbued with a spirit so unselfish and devout, impelled by a 
zeal so aggressive and ardent, it was but natural that their hearts 
should turn with pious yearnings toward the untaught red men 
of the American forests, and that out of such a missionary soil 
should have grown the greatest, most devoted and successful 
Indian missionary and teacher known to the annals of any 
church. David Zeisberger was his name. This man, who spent 
sixty-two years of his life among the North American Indians, 
and who has been appropriately styled one of the " Master Mis- 
sionaries," of the world, sojourned for a little time upon the 
banks of the Cuyahoga. He was born in 1721, in eastern 
Moravia, educated at Herrnhut, Saxony and in Holland, through 
the liberality of Count Zinzendorf, the head of the Moravian 
Church, and came to America when 17 years of age. Here he 
joined his parents, who, with a band of Moravians had, some 
years earlier, fled from persecution in Saxony and found refuge 
in the colony of General Ogelthorpe in Georgia. The breaking 
out of war between England and Spain in 1739, forced them 
from this asylum ; inasmuch as they were, from principle, opposed 
to bearing arms. After some wanderings and temporary settle- 



— 3— 

ments they located at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1741 ; and 
this place has, ever since that time, been the centre of Moravian 
influence in America. 

Here, young Zeisberger's attention was called to the condi- 
tion of the Indians around him, and he resolved to devote his life 
to Christian work among them. He began his labor, as he needs 
must, by studying the Indian languages, and in the prosecution 
of his studies, he not only took instruction from a competent 
teacher at Bethlehem but visited the tribes among whom he ex- 
pected to labor, and took up his residence among them for many 
months at a time. His earlier labors were confined to the region 
east of the Alleghany mountains. Moravian Indian mission 
stations were established on the Housatonic river and its tributar- 
ies in western Massachusetts and Connecticut; on the banks of 
the Mahoney creek, the Lehigh and Susquehanna rivers, and in 
the Wyoming valley in eastern Pennsylvania; at Onondaga in 
western New York, the capital of the famous Iroquois Confed- 
eracy, and at Schekameko in southeastern New York, and later on 
the Alleghany and Beaver rivers in Western Pennsylvania, 
aggregating in all some 25 or 30 stations. Zeisberger's trend, 
like that of all previous history, was to the westward, and yet 
more than a quarter of a century of his missionary labor had 
passed before he crossed the Ohio line and entered the state 
which was to be the scene of his greatest achievements and 
within whose borders his revered ashes now repose. In March, 
1771, upon special request of the Delaware chief, Netawatwes, 
Zeisberger came to Ohio and visited him at his capital, located 
near the present site of Newcomerstown, in Tuscarawas county, 
and preached in the chief's own house. Bishop De Schweinitz, 
the historian, claims that this was the first Protestant sermon 
ever heard in Ohio. 

The Grand Council of Delawares held at Gekelemukpe- 
chunk, as Newcomerstown was then called, urgently invited the 



Christian Indians and their teachers to settle among them; and 
their land having been sold to Pennsylvania by the Iroquois 
from whom it had originally been granted to them, and the 
Yankee and Penamite war raging in the Wyoming valley — all 
tending to unsettle affairs and to retard the mission work, the 
church at Bethelehem, in 1771, resolved to remove all its Indian 
missions to the Tuscarawas in Ohio. The mission board at the 
same meeting appointed John Heckewelder as Zeisberger's assist- 
ant. This man in the annals of Indian missions, ranks next to 
Zeisberger himself; and he and his wife were among those 
Moravians who tarried for a little while upon the Cuyahoga. 
His daughter, born upon the Tuscarawas, is believed to have 
been the first white woman born in Ohio. 

Upon the Tuscarawas, then called the Muskingum, Zeis- 
berger established three mission stations within the limits of the 
present county of Tuscarawas, namely: Schcenbrunn, Gnaden- 
huetten, still bearing the same name, and Salem, near the present 
village of Port Washington, and a fourth, called Lichtenau, on 
the Muskingum near the present village of Coshocton. At this 
latter station, Lichtenau, in 1776, an Englishman, named Wil- 
liam Edwards, became Zeisberger's assistant, was with him upon 
the Cuyahoga, continued to be his co-laborer among the Indians 
for twenty- five years, and now rests by his side in the little grave- 
yard at Goshen, in the valley of the Tuscarawas. 

The ten years from 1772 to 1782 were devoted to the mis- 
sion upon the Tuscarawas and Muskingum. The earlier years of 
this decade were years of great material prosperity as well as a 
time of successful missionary work. Chapels were erected. at the 
different stations, comfortable dwellings were built, orchards 
planted, fields cultivated, and the Indians were not merely hunt- 
ers, but husbandmen as well. 

The Christian Indians, now numbering about 400, were held 
to be a constituent part of the Delaware nation, into which Zeis- 



— 5— 

berger was formally adopted, becoming in fact, if not in name, a 
chief among them. Nor was the gospel preached to the Dela 
wares alone. The Shawan8se, Nanticokes, Mohicans and several 
other Indian tribes were represented in the mission. Such was 
the desire of many of the heathen Indians to attend religious ser- 
vices that their chapels were too small to admit all who wished 
to hear. • 

Here, too, Zeisberger devoted much time to literary work, 
translating into the Delaware language the litany of the church, 
parts of the Bible, and many hymns and sacred songs. 

Within less than three years after the establishment of the 
mission at Schoenbrunn, the Revolutionary War began. In this 
war many leading Indian tribes espoused the cause of Great 
Britain, but the powerful Delaware nation, over whom Zeisberger 
then exercised a controlling influence, remained neutral. In this 
way he indirectly rendered the American colonies a most valuable 
service, without which their Independence must certainly have 
been delayed, and possibly might never have been achieved- 
The position of non-combatants assumed by the Christian Indians 
and their teachers, in those days of war and heated passion, 
caused them to be suspected by both of the contending parties, 
and to be heartily despised and hated by those Indian tribes who 
longed to participate actively in the war. 

Neutrality came to be regarded by the British and their 
Indian allies as secret friendship for the American cause. To 
such an extent was this true, that in 1781, at a barbecue in a 
Shawanese town on the Scioto, a raid against the mission was 
planned in the presence and by the help of British officers and 
under the folds of the British flag. This expedition was under 
the control of Pomoacan, the half King of the Wyandotts, but 
with whom were associated other Indian tribes. By these sav- 
ages the entire body of Christian Indians, on the eleventh day of 
September, 1781, together with their teachers, were forced to 



— 6— 

leave their settlements upon the Tuscarawas, closely guarded by 
Indian warriors. They made a slow and toilsome journey of 
three weeks, attended by great insolence on the part of their 
captors. They traveled in two divisions, the one on foot, driving 
their large herd of cattle, and the other in canoes, going by 
way of the Tuscarawas, the Walhonding and Vernon rivers to the 
head waters of the Sandusky, in what is now Wyandot County, 
Ohio, then the home of their captor, Pomoacan, the half King. 

Almost immediately upon their arrival at the Sandusky, the 
missionaries were summoned to Detroit, then in control of the 
British, and for which place they at once set out. 

About the same time a party of the Christian Indians re- 
turned to the Tuscarawas to gather corn of which they had left 
some three hundred acres standing. 

This band was captured by a company of American militia, 
who had came to the Tuscarawas Valley to carry the Christian 
Indians to Pittsburgh, not knowing that by order of the British 
they had previously been taken to the Sandusky. 

News of this capture reached the missionaries while on their 
way to Detroit. At Detroit the missionaries were acquitted of all 
charges against them and were permitted to return to the San- 
dusky, having made a most favorable impression upon the British 
commandant by their frank and honest answers to all questions 
put to them. 

In the following February — that is February of 1782 — 
about one hundred and fifty of the Christian Indians returned to 
the Tuscarawas to procure a supply of corn, for they were actu- 
ally starving and their cattle dying of hunger on the Sandusky. 
During their absence the missionaries were summoned again to 
Detroit by the British commandant who was kindly disposed 
towards them, for this order of his seems to have been made to 
protect the missionaries from violence at the hands of the savage 
Indians by whom they were surrounded. Some two weeks inter- 



— 7— 

vened between the receipt of this second summons and the day 
fixed for their final departure, and during this interval the mis- 
sionaries sent out runners in many directions to call home their 
scattered congregation in order that they might address to them 
a last word of Christian exhortation and bid them a final fare- 
well. Messenger after messenger was dispatched to the Tusca- 
rawas, but no tidings came. An ominious silence brooded over 
that region. 

In Zeisberger's diary, under date of Friday, March 8, 1782, 
he wrote: "The son of Br. Mark and his wife, Susanna, born in 
in the bush, February 12, was baptised with the name, Jona- 
than." . 

At that very hour when the missionaries were engaged in the 
tender and beautiful ceremony of baptizing the babe of Christian 
Indians upon the Sandusky, a band of infuriated white men were 
burying their murderous tomahawks in the skulls of innocent 
Christian Indians at Gmadenhuetten on the Tuscarawas. 

Even as late as March 7th, a report had reached the 
missionaries that all was well with their brethren on the Tusca- 
rawas, and it was not until March 23rd, at Lower Sandusky, 
while on their second journey to Detroit that Zeisberger and his 
associates received reliable information that the charred remains 
of ninety-six of their faithful Indian followers lay smoldering in 
the smoking ruins of burned Gnadenhuetten. 

Upon hearing of this dreadful calamity the missionaries 
paused upon their journey at Lower Sandusky (now Fremont), 
long enough to hold an appropriate funeral service in memory of 
their massacred brethren upon the Tuscarawas, and then, with 
hearts laden with a double sorrow, turned their feet toward 
Detroit. They arrived at Detroit, April 20th. 

It is said that the religious state of our sister city was then 
at so low an ebb that justices of the peace officiated at funerals 
and administered the rite of baptism. Here it would seem our 



missionaries might well have found a field for their pious labors ; 
but after tarrying in Detroit for three months they went up the 
Detroit River into Lake St. Clair, and thence up the Clinton 
River (then called Huron), and located in Clinton Town- 
ship, Macomb County, Michigan, between Mt. Clemens and 
Frederick, upon a high plateau of land on the bank of the river, 
and from the base of which flowed springs of pure water. This 
place, in situation, much resembled Schcenbrunn, in Tuscarawas 
County, but the missionaries named it Gnadenhuetten. It was 
located on lands claimed and occupied by Chippewa Indians who 
granted the missionaries permission to occupy their lands at the 
solicitation of the British commandant. Here the missionaries 
sought to collect their scattered flock. It was but natural that 
the news of the unprovoked slaughter of their brethren at 
Gnadenhuetten should have produced a feeling of dread and con- 
sternation among the remnant of the Christian Indians upon the 
Sandusky. The fear of the whites was so great that many of 
them turned with distrust and animosity from even their faithful 
teachers and friends, and went back to»heathenism and barbar- 
ism, from which they were never reclaimed. But still, a few 
continued faithful. Slowly the scattered Indians came to their 
teachers upon the Clinton, so that at the end of their sojourn of 
four years at that place, about one -fourth of the congregation 
that had worshipped on the Tuscarawas were again united upon 
the banks of the Clinton. 

Although the settlement here enjoyed peace and the mis- 
sion a fair degree of prosperity, still there were causes 
at work that led to the abandonment of the Clinton in April, 1786. 
In the first place the Chippewas desired to re-occupy their lands 
that were now in the possession of the Christian Indians, claim- 
ing that their consent had been given for temporary occupancy 
only. Again, the question whether the Northwestern Territory 
was to be under British or American control, was unsettled. Also 



—9— 

the United States had by this time made definitive treaties with 
all the great Indian tribes whereby the boundaries of the lands 
to be occupied and controlled by the Indians were definitely 
fixed, and thu3 the Indian troubles were thought to 
be at an end ; and finally on the twentieth of May, 1785, 
Congress adopted a resolution giving to the Moravian 
Christian Indians the three towns formerly occupied by them on 
the Tuscarawas with as much more land adjoining as the United 
States Geographer might choose to grant them. (My father now 
owns a farm which is a part of these lands.) These considera- 
tions induced the missionaries to dispose of such of their prop- 
erty upon the Clinton as they could not well take with them, and 
to start for the Tuscarawas, toward which their eyes had ever 
turned with that longing which links the heart to the burial 
place of departed kinsmen. Their route from the Clinton to the 
Tuscarawas, as planned, was by the way of Lake Erie and the 
Cuyahoga. In April, 1 786, having tarried upon the Clinton four 
years, they sold their property to John Askin and Major Ancrum, 
the British commandant, for $400. Mr. Askin was a warm 
friend of the missionaries and their work, and a Detroit mer2 
chant of evidently considerable financial resources. The friend- 
ship of Major Ancrum was equally warm and manifested itself 
in very practical ways. 

On Saturday, April 15th, 1786, preparatory to their 
departure, the entire congregation partook of a love-feast. If 
the love-feast of that early day, was like those of which I have 
often partaken as a boy, in these later years, it consisted of a 
large mug of most delicious coffee, accompanied by a correspond- 
ingly large sweetened biscuit, the two, in combination, constitut- 
ing a very substantial lunch. Upon Sunday, the 16th, at early 
dawn, it being Easter, the congregation repaired to their rude 
chapel where in the gray morning a portion of the 
litany for the day was read, and thence they took 



—10— 

their way to the cemetery where the reading was concluded. 
This beautiful Easter morning service is still in vogue amoDg 
Moravians everywhere. Four days later, on Thursday the 20th, 
after hylding .a last early devotional service in their little chapel, 
they^^/^^uioir canoes with such property as they could 
remove, and in the afternoon the fleet of twenty -two large canoes 
floated down the Clinton River and Lake St. Clair to Detroit. 
A small party with the horses went by land, going through to 
the Tuscarawas, but returned later to the Cuyahoga upon learning 
that their brethren had arrived there intending to remain for the 
season. Upon reaching Detroit in their canoes, necessary pro- 
visions for the journey were furnished by Major Ancrum. At 
mid-day of the 28th they left that city — then a mere village — in 
two sloops, the "Beaver" and the "Mackinaw," furnished by Mr. 
Askin. Towards evening of the following day, the boats came to 
what I suppose was Middle Bass Island. Here they were 
detained for three weeks by a most unusual storm and continued 
adverse winds. Their days were spent upon the land, thei 
nights upon the boats. They found here ducks, pigeons, rac- 
coons, fish, and an abundance of wild potatoes and onions with 
which they supplemented their scanty stock of provisions. Early 
in the morning of the twentieth of May, the wind being favor- 
able, their boats ventured out into the lake and by 10 a. m. they 
came in sight of the Cuyahoga, when suddenly the wind veered 
to the east and they were compelled to put about and make 
again for the islands. They reached Middle Bass the same after- 
noon. But three days later they sailed down to Put-in-bay Island 
and took refuge in that safe harbor, to which, twenty-seven years 
later, Commodore Perry "put in" for shelter and safety. The 
Bay was then known as Hope's Cove. From this point the 
Beaver, as it could be no longer spared, returned to Detroit, and 
as the Mackinaw could not bring both passengers and baggage to 
the Cuyahoga they landed the passengers in two companies at the 



—11— 

northernmost point of Catawba Island, now known as Ottawa City. 
From this point they came on their journey in two divisions, one 
led by Zeisberger on foot, the other, led by Heckewelder in 
canoes which they made ; while Edwards and a few others came 
in the "Mackinaw" with the baggage. The footmen traveled near 
the shore of the lake and from the Ottawa Indians and a French 
trader boats were procured for the crossing of Sandusky Bay and 
the Huron River, the remaining rivers, the Vermillion, Black 
and Rocky, being crossed in the canoes of Heckewelder's party. 
The high banks west and east of Rocky River were a source of 
amazement and awe to our travelers. The bank of the lake they 
describe as being then undermined, and, doubtless, since that 
time the south shore has receded many feet. The "Mackinaw" ar- 
rived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga on June 6th, Heckewelder 
in his canoes on the morning of the 8th and Zeisberger's party of 
footmen in the afternoon of the same day. The footmen came 
along the line of the Lake Shore railroad seventy years before 
that road was built. Zeisberger and his Indians occupied eleven 
days in making the journey from Port Clinton to Cleveland, 
while we fly over the same distance in less than half that number 
of hours. Thus it appears that one hour in 1894 is as long, when 
measured by miles, as three days were in 1786. 

Upon this long and tiresome journey, on foot from Ottawa 
City to Cleveland, was one devoted pedestrian whose name de- 
serves especial mention, and that was Mrs. Zeisberger, who, 
carrying a bundle, as did all the others, walked almost the entire 
distance by her husband's side. 

As to the condition of the mouth of the Cuyahoga at that 
time, Zeisberger, in his diary under date of June 8, 1786, says : 

" Heckewelder had hardly got into the mouth of the river 
this morning when a wind sprung up and a canoe which lagged 
behind came to grief from the rocks and had to run ashore. It 
was broken up but all others were rescued. Our "Mackinaw," day 



—12— 

before yesterday, had already arrived in good, calm 
weather, at the mouth of the river, which was 
great good luck, for when they sounded and found on 
the bar not more than three feet of water there was no possibility 
of getting in. The channel was stopped up where last year this 
same sloop came in, having eight feet of water — there is this year 
dry land or a heap of sand thrown up by the lake. The captain 
was on the point of turning back to Detroit without landing the 
baggage but was finally persuaded by the words of Bros. Sche- 
bosh and Edwards to try it, and thus, with much trouble from 
the open lake, for it was a good mile from land, they brought 
everything ashore at last. Had it not been calm it could not 
have been done. The sloop had put back into the lake. After she 
was unloaded and lightened she made another trial and came into 
the harbor all right, though with trouble enough, that she might 
be out of danger from a storm." 

From this statement of an eye witness it appears, first, that 
the mouth of the Cuyahoga was then navigable by boats that 
drew eight feet of water; and second, that the channel was sub- 
ject to very great changes in the short space of one year. 

The following rudely sketched map, drawn by Hecke welder, 
was found among the papers of General Moses Cleaveland and 
presented to the Western Reserve Historical Society, of Cleve- 
land, by his daughter. It accompanies, in Vol. 2 of the publica- 
tion of that Society (Tract 64) a description by Rev. Heckewelder 
of the Western Reserve. This map, as will be seen, represents 
the Cuyahoga as running direct to Lake Erie without any curve 
to correspond with the present "Old River Bed," so-called. Little 
importance can be attached to this fact for a mere casual inspec- 
tion of that map shows that it was no part of the draftsman's 
purpose to show the meanderings of the Cuyahoga in any detail 
or with any sort of accuracy, but was intended to be the merest 



—13— 

outline and probably was drawn from memory when not actually 
on the ground. 

But let us return to the company of our Indians. 

Having arrived upon June 8th, they encamped upon the 
banks of the river and remained here just one week. Not a white 
man did they find here when they arrived. Their stock of pro- 
visions was well nigh exhausted and they were suffering from 
hunger, so much so that in his diary of June 12th, Zeisberger 
says : " Hunger begins to fall sharply upon us." Had they not 
been restrained by conscientious scruples they might have sup- 
plied their needs, for on the bank of the river not far from its 
mouth there stood a building stored with flour intended for De- 
troit, and which seems not to have been very securely fastened, 
for the thievish Chippewa Indians who lived on and near Huron 
river "took away secretly many horse loads of flour from that 
stored in the house." This warehouse was the property of a 
Pittsburg firm, known as Duncan & Wilson, with whom the 
Moravians afterward carried on considerable trade. The loca- 
tion of this storehouse on the bank of the Cuyahoga, filled with 
flour intended for Detroit, is another evidence that the Detroit 
boats of that early day, like those of the present, entered our 
river and were loaded from a building standing upon its bank. 

The Moravians spent their first week in Cleveland in manu- 
facturing — not side-wheel steamers nor steel ships as we now do 
— but in constructing their fleet of bark canoes preparatory to a 
sail or rather a pull up the Cuyahoga, for they were anxious to 
learn how far up the creek, as they called the Cuyahoga, they 
could go. Besides, corn-planting time was now nearly gone and 
they knew not where the next winter's provisions were to come 
from unless they planted and sowed crops of their own. Accord- 
ingly on Thursday, June 15th, Heckewelder, with several fami- 
lies, started in their canoes up the river, followed the next day by 
Zeisberger with another party, which overtook the first on the 



—14— 

17th. " The first day," says Zeisberger, " we had still water and 
good traveling, but the second day bad, for the creek was full of 
falls, and the further we went the worse it was." A third and 
last party came with Edwards. 

Under date of June 18, Zeisberger, in his diary, writes as 
follows : " We came to an old Ottawa town where we stopped to 
examine the neighborhood. We considered what would be best 
for us and found that we and our Indians could not hold out to 
keep up our journey as we had thought, namely, to come to 
Thuppekunk, where we had thought of planting yet. We saw 
that we should yet have several days' labor, that our people had 
nothing to eat, and we dared not then think of planting. We 
resolved, therefore, to stay here this summer, when our matters 
would become clearer, for at present we are confused and know 
not rightly how things are with us. We laid out our camp upon 
the east side of the creek upon a height, and the day after, Mon- 
day 19, we sowed the land on the west side where we wished to 
plant, and found good and, in part, quite clear land for this pur- 
pose, only it was very wild, the weeds standing as high as a man, 
which we had to cut down, thus having much trouble and labor." 

On June 21st a caravan of one hundred pack-horses, in charge 
of white men, came by the village on their way from Pittsburg to 
the mouth of the river, laden with corn and provisions intended 
for Detroit and from whom the Moravians purchased a supply of 
flour. It would seem that this commerce between Pittsburg and 
Detroit, by way of the mouth of the Cuyahoga, could not have been 
of long standing prior to June, 1786, for the Moravian Indians were 
asked to act as guides to show the white men the way to the lake. 
If there had been a well-beaten path this would have been un- 
necessary. By June 24th, six days after locating their village, 
they had cleared away the weeds and brush and had finished 
planting their corn. A little late this would be to find our thrifty 
farmers in the Independence bottoms planting their corn now-a- 



—15— 

days. The precise location of the Moravian village has been as- 
certained with a good degree of certainty. Colonel Whittlesey, 
in his history of Cleveland, locates it at or near the mouth of 
Tinker's creek, in the Township of Independence. Zeisberger 
himself says that the village was on the east side of the " creek," 
as he called the river, and that their clearing and planting were 
done on the west side of the " creek." He also says that it con- 
sumed the 16th, 17th and part of the 18th of June in going by 
canoe from the mouth of the river to the place where they located. 
If they went up the river at as slow a rate of travel as they came 
to it from the west, that is five to seven miles per day, they would 
evidently have landed somewhere in the Township of Independ 
ence on the 18th. 

Hecke welder, on his outline map already referred to, indi- 
cates where the Moravian village was by two small circles and the 
words, "Moravian Ind, Town in 1786." He also represents two 
streams as flowing into the Cuyahoga on its easterly side, the 
more southerly one considerably larger and longer than the other. 
Between these streams he locates the Moravian town, but gives 
no names either to the streams or the town. The larger and 
longer of these creeks is doubtless what is known as Tinker's 
Creek and the other is the stream next north of it. 

The map drawn by Heckewelder locates the Indian village 
on the east side of the Cuyahoga and on the south bank of th e 
smaller of the two creeks or runs shown on his map. At the 
mouth of this smaller run the Cuyahoga river bent formerly quite 
abruptly to the eastward, causing it to hug the high bluff at that 
point very closely. This conformation of river, run and bluff 
rendered that spot a most desirable one on which to locate an 
Indian town. Besides, from the foot of that bluff flowed springs 
of pure water. 

A river, a high bluff and perennial springs, these constitute 
the ideal site for an Indian town, especially a Moravian Indian 



—16— 

town. Thus it was on the Susquehannah, the Alleghany, the 

Beaver, the Tuscarawas, the Clinton and the Cuyahoga. The 

course of the Cuyahoga at that point has been changed, so that 

now its bed is many rods west of where it ran in 1786. Possibly 

the change occurred when the Ohio canal was built, as it now lies 

between the bluff and the river. 

o 
The Indians gave no name to their village, but Utskiel, the 

historian, gave to it the name Pilgerruh, meaning Pilgrim's Rest. 

The indefatigable President of this Society, Hon. C. C. Bald- 
win, while making investigations at Bethlehem, Pa., in the sum- 
mer of 1892, discovered among the archives of the Moravian 
church there, a map of this village, showing not only the streets 
and buildings, but giving the names of the occupants of each house 
or hut. (See maps.) 

The engraving is furnished by the courtesy of that Society, 
and will appear in one of its future publications. 

It is quite probable that the land which they planted, then 
being on the west side of the river, it now on the east side by rea- 
son of the changed course of the stream. 

The Indians at once set to work erecting huts, some of bark 
others of logs and blocks, and also a house in which to hold their 
religious services. By November 10th their chapel was so far 
completed that they held their first service in it. Zeisberger had 
an intense desire to re -unite his scattered flock. 

He longed for the companionship of the absent members of 
his Christian household. In September, 1786, from Pilgerruh he 
sent to the dispersed Indians who had been left upon the San- 
dusky the following tender appeal, sounding like the voice of an 
aged father echoing plaintively through the forest calling to his 
wandering children to come home. Thus it read : 

zeisberger's letter. 
" To all our Scattered Brethren, this our Salutation: 

We have not forgotten you. We think of you constantly 



—17— 

and wish that you could again be in fellowship with us, believing 
that you, on your part, have not forgotten the Word of God which 
we have taught you. Hence we desire to know your mind as to 
how you may again be brought to hear this Word and experience 
its divine influences. To this end we invite some of your under- 
standing men to visit us that we may consult with them. Do not 
cast away your confidence or give up your hope, do not imagine 
that this effort to reclaim you will be in vain, that you have 
strayed too far away and sinned too grieviously, to be gathered 
again as a congregation of the Lord. Do not say, ' The Savior 
and the brethern have cast us off !' Take courage. Turn to the 
Savior, who is merciful and gracious, full of compassion and 
truth, and Who will forgive your sins. As for us, we do not seek 
an opportunity to reprove you. We ask you to hold a conference 
with us that we may, together, determine how to relieve you 
from your present unhappy mode of life, and to bring you back 
to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was shed for the worst of 
sinners." 

But the iron of the Gnadenhuetten massacre had entered so 
deeply into their souls that few paid heed to the paternal in- 
vitation. 

Their means of subsistance were somewhat precarious, and 
they evidently were often pinched with the gnawings of hunger. 
Their own store of provisions was substantially exhausted when 
they arrived at the mouth of the river, and from their own plant- 
ing and sowing they realized but little until October. They eked 
out a scanty living by fishing in the river and lake, by hunting in 
the forests, by importing corn from the Petquotting or Huron 
river and the Sandusky, by supplies of honey from swarms of 
wild bees ( of which there were many in the forests, says Zeisber- 
ger ) from cows bought and driven in from Pittsburgh, and from 
flower bought from the pack-horse merchants and from Duncan 
& Wilson's agent at the mouth of the river. The path over which 



—18- 

the caravans of pack-horses came from Pittsburgh, to the month 
of our river crossed the river near the mouth of Tinker's creek, 
and this gave the Moravians facilities for purchasing flour as well 
as a means of sending letters to the church in the east via Pitts- 
burgh. On one occasion the pack-horsemen finding no white 
people at the lake, stored seventy horse-loads of flour in a build- 
ing in or near the Moravian village. The flour remained undis- 
turbed from October 25th until December 14th, when seven 
Tawas and Chippewas came up from the lake, remained over 
night, and in the morning made some very suggestive inquiries 
about that flour ( of which they had previously heard ) and pro- 
ceeded to take out three casks of it, and very generously gave one 
of them to the Moravians because they could not carry all three 
away with them. Says Zeisberger : ''We, however, put the 
cask with the rest, and did not take it." 

Are there any pale-faced Christians now residing on the 
banks of the Cuyahoga who pay a stricter heed to the eighth 
section of the Decalogue than did these dusky disciples in 1786 ? 
In those slow times honesty was thought to be an essential ele- 
ment of Christian character. 

In Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio," speaking of Col- 
James Hillman, then of Youngstown, and who was an employe of 
Duncan & Wilson, of Pittsburg, in transporting goods from that 
place to the mouth of our river, the author says on page 338, 
"During the summer of 1786 he made six trips, the caravan con- 
sisting of ten men and ninety horses. They usually crossed the 
Big Beaver four miles below the mouth of the Shenango, thence 
up the left bank of the Mahoning, crossing it about three miles 
above the village of Youngstown, thence by way of the Salt 
Springs, in the Township of Weathersfield, through Milton and 
Ravenna, crossing the Cuyahoga at the mouth of Breakneck, and 
again at the mouth of Tinker's creek in Bedford, and thence down 
the river to its mouth, where they erected a log hut for the safe 



—19— 

keeping of their goods, which was the first house built in Cleve- 
land. At the mouth of Tinker's creek were a few houses built 
by the Moravian missionaries. They were then vacant, the 
Indians having occupied them one year only previous to their 
removal to the Tuscarawas river." 

In this quotation there are at least three errors. If the 
Moravians had vacated their houses before Col. Hillman came to 
the mouth of our river, then he did not come in 1786, for they 
remained until April, 1787; second, when the Moravians left the 
Cuyahoga they did not go to the Tuscarawas river but to the 
Huron or Petquotting river, in Erie county, Ohio; and thirdly, 
the mouth of Tinker's creek was not in Bedford but in Independ- 
ence township. 

There was another source of discomfort to these Indians that 
occasioned them more solicitude than the question of their food 
supply. The massacre of their friends and kinsmen by white 
men in March, 1782, at Gnadenhuetten, on the Tuscarawas, had 
struck ineradicable terror and trepidation into the very depths of 
the souls of these Christian Indians. They were disturbed by 
every report of danger whether true or false. Every new or 
strange sound at night was, to their affrighted ears, the tramp of 
an army of white men coming to repeat the bloody scenps of 
Gnadenhuetten, and they would betake themselves in dead of 
night, like frightened deer, to the forest where they would remain 
in hiding, and whence they would timidly emerge only upon as- 
surance that there was no immediate danger to be feared. Let 
Zeisberger relate in his own simple way one instance illustrative 
of the fear with which the Indians were constantly haunted. 
Under date of Sunday, October 22, he writes in his diary as 
follows: 

" In the evening when it was already dark, we heard from 
afar a great uproar from white people and horses' bells. We sup- 
posed it was the pack-horses with flour, but to the Indians, with 



—20— 

all our persuasions, this was not trustworthy, but they believed it 
to be the army of which we had heard, which would surround us, 
and no one would venture out to see, but every soul of them fled 
to the bush and left us quite alone until at dawn Br. Schebosh 
went out and found it was the pack-horses, who, by good luck, had 
an Indian with them * * * who told them that all they had 
heard was a lie. Then they were convinced and recovered from 
their fear and timidity. If the Indian had not been with them> 
they would never have believed the white people, so incredulous 
were they." Many other instances of fleeing to the "bush" does 
Zeisberger mention in his diary during the time they were lodging 
upon the bank of our river. They apprehended danger both from 
the whites and heathen Indians. The Gnadenhuetten and other 
atrocities on the part of white men, kept them in constant fear of 
danger from the pale faces. 

On the other hand, in May, 1785, the American Congress had 
reserved to the Christian Indians their three towns, Schoenbrunn, 
Gnadenhuetten and Salem on the Tuscarawas, with so much ad- 
ditional land as the Government Geographer might see fit to give 
them. Besides this, on the 24th day of August, 1786, Congress 
passed a resolution expressive of that body's pleasure at hearing 
of the safe arrival of the Indians upon the Cuyahoga, assuring 
them of the friendship of the United States, granting them per- 
mission to return to their former settlements on the Muskingum, 
and ordering Lt. Col. Harmar to furnish them with provisions and 
utensils upon their arrival upon the Muskingum. The resolutions 
and Col. Harmar's letter forwarding it are as follows : 
"By the United States, in Congress assembled, August 24, 1786: 

Resolved : That the Secretary of War give orders to Lt. Col. 
Harmar that he signify to the Moravian Indians, lately come 
from the River Huron to Cuyahoga, that it affords pleasure to 
Congress to hear of their arrival, and that they have permission 
to return to their former settlement on the Muskingum, where 



—21— 

they may be assured of the friendship and protection of the 
United States; and that Lt. Col. Harmar supply the said Indians, 
after their arrival at Muskingum, with a quantity of Indian corn, 
not exceeding five hundred bushels, out of the public stores on 
the Ohio, and deliver the same to them at Fort Mcintosh as soon 
after next Christmas as the same may be procured; and that he 
furnish the said Indians with twenty Indian axes, twenty corn 
hoes and one hundred blankets, and that the Board of Treasury 
and Secretary of War take order to carry the above into effect." 

To the Moravian Indians at or near Cuyahoga : 

Ft. Harmar, At the Mouth of the Muskingum, Dec. 6, 1786. 
Brothers : 

The Honorable Congress have been pleased to pass the en- 
closed resolve in your favor. I have directed that the corn and 
other articles shall be sent down to this port, where they will be 
ready to be delivered to you. In obedience to the orders of 
Congress, I have to inform you that that honorable body are well 
pleased to hear of your arrival and have granted you permission 
to return to your former settlements on the Muskingum, where 
you may be assured of the friendship and protection of the United 
States. 

I should wish to know the names of the principal men who 
have the direction of your affairs, and shall be happy in render, 
ing you every assistance in my power. 

I am, Brothers, your friend, 

Lieut. Col. Jos. Harmar. 
Lt. Col. Com'd of the troops in the service of the U. S. 

In addition to these invitations Gen. Butler, Superintendent 
of Indian affairs, sent a friendly letter dissuading the Moravian 
Indians from paying heed to the requests of heathen chiefs. To 
such an extent had all these influences wrought upon the 
mind of Zeisberger that as late as March 11, 1787, he advised his 



-22- 

congregation to go to the Tuscarawas. The lot, by which the 
advice of the Savior was obtained in a crisis, was appealed to, 
and thus it was ascertained that the Savior was not opposed to 
their going to the Tuscarawas, but that there was no special haste 
in the matter. 

Duncan & Wilson, who had given up their warehouse at the 
lake and who found these honest Moravians very safe custodians 
of their flour, as well as desirable patrons of their trade, with an 
eye to business advised the Indians that on the Cuyahoga was 
the safest place they could possibly find. 

On the other hand, the heathen Indians used every means in 
their power to persuade, frighten and compel them to retrace 
their steps and take up their residence on the Petquotting. 

At one time it was rumored that the whites had committed 
murders in the SLawnese country, that Congress had declared 
war against the Indian nations, that the Tuscarawas swarmed 
with white people ready to massacre them as in 1782. Added to 
this were positive orders from Capt. Pipe and several other chiefs, 
who claimed the right to control the movements of the Christian 
Indians, that they must not go to the Tuscarawas, but must go to 
the Huron river, in Erie county, this State. Last of all, open 
threats were made that if the Moravian Indians persisted in 
going to the Tuscarawas country the missionaries would be killed 
and the Indians carried away as captives. 

In the face of such fierce opposition as this the Moravians 
reluctantly, for the time, abandoned their cherished purpose of 
returning to the Tuscarawas, the scene of their greatest prosper- 
ity and of their direst calamity, and began to prepare to bid 
adieu to the Valley of the Cuyahoga. 

As to their numbers Colonel Charles Whittlesey, in his 
"Early History of Cleveland," speaking on page 137, of the 
Moravian community as it was in October, 1786, says: 
"whose number at this time I am unable to ascertain." 



—23— 

From Zeisberger's diary, however, to which the Colonel 
probably did not have access, their number is ascertainable with 
much accuracy. He states that on December 31st, 1786, there 
were 95 Indians on the Cuyahoga, whom he classifies as follows : 

16 married couples. 

1 "Individual woman." 

2 single men. 

2 widowers. 

6 single women. 

3 widows. 
8 big boys. 

7 big girls. 
13 boys. 

21 girls. - „ 

Besides these 95, 12 Indian?, had left from fear, in October 
and gone to the Petquotting, making; therefore in all, 107 Indians 
who constituted the settlement. In addition to the Indians there 
were Zeisberger and his wife, Heckewelder and his wife, Edwards 
and Schebosh, six; all of whom were whites, making a grand 
total of 113 persons. 

But one death occurred while here, and this is the account 
of it in Zeisberger's own language, found in his diary under date 
of Friday, June 30, 1786: 

" We early learned a sad circumstance. Thomas, who was 
scalped at Gnadenhuetten. March 8th, 1782, went down the 
creek fishing, day before yesterday, and when he remained out 
over night it was supposed he had gone down to the lake. This 
merning Jacob went down the creek, where he shot a deer, and 
found his canoe, which had floated down, but not him. But when 
search was made he was found dead in the water. Since he was 
scalped he has often had fits, and this was doubtless the cause of 
his death for he was one of the best of swimmers." 



—24— 

Only one other Indian escaped at Gnadenhuetten, a lad 
named Jacob, and whether he was here upon our river I have 
been unable to ascertain with certainty. There was a Jacob 
among them, probably it was he. There having been but one 
death no graveyard was laid out by them. 

On Thursday, April 19, 1787, they bade farewell to Pilger- 
ruh, loaded their canoes and turned their faces again to the west- 
ward, some with Edwards floating down the Cuyahoga in their 
canoes and rowing westward near the southern shore of the lake, 
while others, with Zeisberger and his wife, went by land, and 
Heckewelder, who had just returned from Bethlehem, coming on 
still a few days later. The company finding land in Lorain 
county, upon Black river, five miles from its mouth, quite to their 
liking, tarried there about a week intending to establish them- 
selves there, but soon they were ordered by a Monsey chief to 
move on still farther west. Accordingly they proceeded to the 
Huron river where they located near the present site of Milan, in 
Erie county, and established a village known in their history as 
New Salem. Here they remained for four years, the mission 
meeting with a success that recalled to the minds of the mission- 
aries the flourishing days at Schoenbrum, Gnadenhuetten and 
Lichtenau. But this happy condition of things could not long 
contiue in those tumultuous and war-like times. The policy of 
the United States in respect to the title of the land occupied by 
the Indian tribes was, from the very first, highly unsatisfactory 
to the Indians and the treaties entered into, fixing the extent and 
boundaries of their occupation, were more the results of compul- 
sion than of hearty acquiesence. Upon the close of the Revolu- 
tion our Government took the ground that the effect of the war 
and the cession of territory by Great Britain, vested in the 
United States a complete and perfect title to all the lands ceded 
by England whether those lands were or were not claimed by 
Indians. Certainly this was not a very unnatural position to take 



—25— 

in view of the fact that many of the Indian tribes had been the 
active allies of England during the war. Although by treaty the 
boundary of rightful Indian occupation was the Cuyahoga and 
upper Tuscarawas the savage western tribes insisted upon push- 
ing their occupation to the Ohio river. The issue thus raised 
could not be settled by argument or diplomacy, but was submitted 
to the arbitrament of rifle and tomahawk, sword and scalping 
knife and torch. A general Indian war ensued. The Christian 
Indians must tight or suffer massacre or flee. They felt that 
there was no place of safety within the limits of the United States. 
They were in fear of the war-like savages and were tilled with 
unspeakable horror and dread at thought of the possible re-ap- 
pearance of the American militia, whom, since the Grnadenhuetten 
massacre, they feared more than any combination of savage 
Indians. Permission was therefore obtained to settle in Canada 
on the Detroit river, near the present village of Amherstburgh 
in the Province of Ontario, to which place they removed in May, 
1791. Not feeling entirely secure so near the theater of war they 
left this place in April of the following year and located on the 
west side of the Thames river, about eighty -five miles from its 
mouth, in the Province of Ontario. Here they built a village 
called then and still Fairfield, and where, until 1798, the com- 
munity remained unbroken and the mission was fairly prosperous. 
The Christian Indians having, in 1791, removed from the 
United States and transferred the mission to British soil, Thomas 
Jefferson, in November of that year, as Secretary of State, de- 
clared in his report "that the lands reserved for them still re- 
main to the United States " Congress, however, by an act dated 
June 1st, 1796, renewed the grant, and President Adams, in the 
spring of 1797, issued the deed to the Society for Propagating 
the Gospel. This friendly action on the part of the United States 
Government turned the thoughts of Zeisberger and his co-laborer^ 
again to the valley of Tuscarawas, and thither a portion of them 



—26— 

resolved to go. Accordingly in the year 1798, Hecke^relder, 
Edwards, Mortimer, the Zeisbergers and thirty-three of the con- 
verts, left Fairfield for the Tuscarawas, coming by way of the 
Cuyahoga and the ruins of Pilgerruh. Twelve years of labor and 
journeyings had passed simce they had first halted upon the banks 
of our river for a little time, hoping and much desiring to resume 
the journey to the Tuscarawas. This was not to be. But now 
after these years of delay their wishes are to be gratified and 
their canoes glide up our river for the last time and the Moravians 
vanish forever from the Cuyahoga. 





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